Commentary-On-Johns-Gospel-V1-Of
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148 ANALYSIS OF THE l!'OURTH GOSPEL. [BOOK Il writings ascribe to the person of Christ in relation to the human soul absolutely the same central position as the Old Testament ascribes to God. For whom were absolute confi dence and love reserved by Moses and the prophets ? Jesus claims them for Himself in the Synoptics, and that in the name of our eternal salvation. Would Jewish Monotheism, so strict and so jealous of God's rights, have permitted Jesus to take such a position, had He not had the distinct conscious ness that in the background of His human existence there was a divine personality? He cannot as a faithful Jew desire to be to us what He asks to be in the Synoptics, unless He is what He claims to be in J ohn.1 This general conclusion is reinforced by a large number of particular facts in the same writings. We have just seen how, in Luke, He who comes after the forerunner is called in the preceding words the Lord their God. In Mark, the person of the Son is placed above even the most exalted creatures: "But of that day knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son [ during the time of His humilia tion], but the Father" (xiii. 32). In Matthew, the Son is. placed between the Father and the Holy Spirit, the breath of God : " Baptize all nations in the name of the Father, of the· Son, and of the Holy Ghost" (xxviii. 19 ). In the parable of the husbandmen, Jesus represents Himself, in contrast to the servants sent before Him, as the son and heir of the master of the vineyard (Matt. xxi. 3 7, 3 8). It will be vain to subject. the question of Jesus in Matt. xxii. 45 : "If David, then, call Christ his Lord, how is He his son ? " to every imaginable sort of manipulation; the thought of Jesus will always come out simple and clear to the man who does not seek mid-day at dawn: If, on the one hand, Christ is David's son by His earthly origin, on the other, He is nevertheless his Lord in virtue of His divine personality. So Micah had already said,, v. 2. And how, if Jesus had not the consciousness of His divinity, could He speak of His angels (Matt. xiii. 41), of His. glory (xxv. 31), finally, of His name, under the invocation of 1 Schultz writes these words in his recent work on the divinity of Jesus. Christ: "The sentiment of religious dependence is not allowable except towards. the one true God ..•• We ought to bow religiously only before that which ill, really divine" (die Lelire von der Gottlieit Christi, pp. 540 and 541). ,CHAP. II.] CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 11:9 which the faithful are gathered together ? The Old Testament ,did not authorize any creature thus to appropriate the attri butes of Jehovah. Now the notion' of His pre-existence was in the mind of Jesus implicitly contained in that of His divinity. Undoubtedly we do not find in the Synoptics any declara tion so precise as those we have just quoted from the Johannine discourses. But do we not learn from Luke's Gospel the enormous mass of materials which would be wholly wanting if we had only those of Matthew and Mark; for example, the three parables of grace (Luke xv.: the lost sheep, the lost drachma, the prodigal son), those of the faith less steward, the wicked rich man (Luke xvi.), those of the unjust judge, the Pharisee and the publican (Luke xviii.), tbe narrative of Zacchreus, the incident of the converted thief, and ,so many other treasures which Luke has rescued from the -oblivion in which the other published traditions had left them, and which he alone has preserved to the church 1 How, then, could we make the omission of these few sayings in our first three Gospels an argument against their authenticity 1 If delineations so impressive and narratives so popular as those just referred to had not passed into the matter of oral evan gelization or into any of its written compilations, how much more easily might three or four sayings of a very elevated and profoundly mysterious character have been effaced from tradi tion, to reappear later as the reminiscences of a hearer who paid special attention to everything in the teaching of Jesus which concerned His person ! The dogmatic interest which those declarations have for us did not exist to the same degree then; for tbe impression of the person of Jesus, daily contem plated in its living fulness, filled the hearts of the believing and made up for all particular blanks. Besides, let us not forget that of those three sayings one occurred in the discourse following the multiplication of the loaves, a discourse which is wholly omitted by the Synoptics; the second, in a discoUl'se delivered at Jerusalem, and which is also omitted in them, along with the whole visit of which it forms part; the third, i.n the high-priestly prayer which they have left equally unreported. .As to John, according to his plan he must necessarily cite them if, as appears from x.r 30 and 31, he 150 ANALYSIS OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. [BOOK U. wished to give account of the signs by which he had recog nised in Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, and which might contribute to produce in his readers the same assurance of faith. Those culminating points of the testimony of Jesus regarding His person could not be wanting in such a representation. There remains the difference in eschatological views. In the Synoptics, a visible return of the Lord, an external final judg ment, a bodily resurrection of the faithful, a reign of glory; in J uhn, no other return of Christ than His corning into the heart in the form of the Holy Spirit; no other resurrection than that of the soul by regeneration; no other judgment than the division which takes place between believers and unbelievers through the preaching of the Gospel; no other reign than the life of the believer in Christ and in God. " The whole of this Gospel is planned," says Hilgenfeld, " so as to present the historical coming of Christ as His one appearance on the earth." 1-But is this exclusive spiritualism which is ascribed to the fourth Gospel a reality 1 John certainly emphasizes the return of Jesus in spirit. But is it entirely to displace and deny His visible return 1 No ; according to him, the first is the preparation for the second : " I shall come again;" such is the spiritual return. Then he adds : "And I shall take you to be with me, that where I am (in the Father's house, where there are many mansions, and where Jesus Him self is now going) ye may be with me also" (xiv. 3); such is a consummation in some sense or other. "If I wilJ that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee 1" (xxi. 23). And in the first Epistle: "My little children, abide in Him, that when He shall appear we may have confidence" (ii. 28). "We know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him ,. (iii 2).-The spiritual judgment which John teaches is also, according to him, a preparation for the external judgment in which the dispensation of grace shall issue. "Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father ; there is one that accuseth you, even Moses in whom ye trust." " The hour is coming in which all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and shall come forth ; they that have done good, to the resurrection of life ; they that have done evil, to 1 Einl. p. 728. CHAP. II.] CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 151 the resurrection of judgment" (v. 45 and 28, 29). Here, certainly, are an external judgment and a bodily resurrection duly proclaimed. True, Scholten thinks these verses must be an interpolation. For what reason 1 They are not want ing in any manuscript or version. No; but the critic has decreed a priori what the fourth Gospel must be to be the antipodes of the other three. .And as these verses form an obstacle to this supreme decision of his criticism, he takes his scissors and cuts. This is what people in our day call science . .As to the rest, there is little gained by such violent procedure. Four times successively, indeed, in eh. vi. Jesus reverts to those inconvenient facts of the last day and of the resurrection of the dead: "That of all which the Father hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day" (ver. 39); "That every one which seeth the Son and believeth on Him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day" (ver. 40); "No man can come to me except the Father draw him; and I will raise him up at the last day" (ver. 44) ; "Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, . I will raise him up at the last day " (ver. 54). It will be confessed that it requires some hardihood to main tain that a book in which such a series of affirmations is found teaches neither a last judgment nor a resurrection of the body. But a public is reckoned on, and unfortunately with good right, which raises no challenge.